Winter Camp Diary: Day 1 — Travel and Blood Sacrifices

Michael Calore stands in the Wired parking lot, ready to hit the road.

From left to right, Jim Merithew, Michael Calore and Roberto Baldwin carry boxes of test gear out to the cars.

Karissa Bell squeezes in the back seat of the Ford Flex with test gear as the team heads to Lake Tahoe, CA.

Rocking some tunes from Roberto's phone.

The team stops for lunch en route to Lake Tahoe, CA, at the Sandwich Spot in Sacramento.

Roberto drives across the Bay Bridge, out of San Francisco.

Karissa picks out some Roxy bindings at Ground Zero in Sacramento, CA.

Roberto and Karissa pull up to the Village at Squaw Valley.

The team unpacks all the gear at the lodge.

Roberto tries out the bunk bed at the lodge.

Billy Brown and Karissa stock up on snacks and breakfast food for the week.

Gear, gear, and more gear. We're ready to hit the slopes.

LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA — For the snow enthusiast, the first day of the season is more exciting than Christmas morning. The feeling and sound of snow crunching under your brand-new board or skis as you exit the lift for the first run of the year is incredible.

We haven’t quite experienced that joy just yet, but we will tomorrow. A group of us Wired folk have come up here to test a bunch of snow gear — boards, boots, and a few boxes of soft goods — over the next four days. Even though we’ll be spending our nights documenting every turn, jump and mishap here on Playbook, it’s still the sweetest gig. Hell, most of us would pull overtime shifts on the ski lift if it was possible just to get in a few runs on the white stuff with brand-new gear.

The Wired Winter Camp crew (Or WWCC for those keeping score) loaded up a couple of SUVs with gear Wednesday afternoon. It was raining in San Francisco, and the snow forecast in Lake Tahoe was a bit grim, but after weeks of staring at the piles of gear in the Gadget Lab and counting down the days until we headed up to the Squaw Valley resort, we’re ready to ride anything that’s white and requires a lift ticket.

The trip was blessed (or possibly cursed) by an event that occurred in the parking lot of the Wired office: the sacrifice of a pigeon by a unidentifiable San Francisco bird of prey. While we were loading up the vehicles, we noticed feathers drifting down from the sky and landing at our feet. We looked up to the roof of the office and saw whatever freaky bird it was — possibly a hawk, maybe a falcon — pushing clumps of feathers off the side of the building. The gently floating detritus resembled a peaceful winter snow fall, just with bits of bloody pigeon meat attached. It was weird and mesmerizing, but mostly a little gross.

One stroke of bad luck (damned bird!) was that Karissa’s snowboard bindings hadn’t arrived in time for the trip. Karissa is the person on our staff we put in charge of gathering all our review samples, and she wrangled up enough gear outfit 20 skiers and snowboarders. But somehow, a few of the things Karissa wanted to test for herself (she’s an expert snowboarder) fell through the cracks. The Flow bindings she called in never showed up. After calling the manufacturer and hounding FedEX, she solved the mystery: the bindings had been sent two-day shipping instead of overnight.

“It’s the day we leave, and I have two boards and no bindings,” she said. “I must have gone to the mail room five times this morning looking for them. Turns out, there was a shipping snafu and I’m not going to be able to ride my Flows until Saturday.”

We left San Francisco — and the grisly episode of CSI: Bird Unit — behind and barreled down Interstate 80. Unfortunately, some of us tend to barrel a little quicker than others.

“Robbie was driving at the front and I was bringing up the rear of the convoy,” says product reviews editor Michael Calore. “I’m trying to keep up with him and I’m looking at the speedometer, and the guy’s pushing 90, passing all the commuters and leaving everyone in the dust. We had to send a GroupMe message up to the lead car and beg him to lay off the throttle.”

We still had to get some bindings for Karissa, or else she was going to be relying on bungee cords to test the boards she called in. So, we started Yelping ski shops in Sacramento, which is a couple of hours into the drive. The divide between skiers and snowboarders is no more more apparent than with shops that cater to only one of our beloved snow sports. Fortunately, our photo editor Ariel was able to find a shop (snowboard only) that carried bindings. Karissa ended up with a pair of Roxy Rockit Roll bindings that just happen to match her electric yellow snow bibs. Win.

With new bindings in our possession, Robbie’s speed-racer antics under control and delicious sandwiches in our belly (thanks to Ariel’s knowledge of the best places to in Sacramento to shove bread, cheese and meat into our mouths), we rolled on into the Sierras.

By the time we arrived at the resort, there wasn’t much snow, but there was a constant drizzle of light rain. I blame the falcon’s curse. No matter — the top of Squaw had received a few inches of snow in the past 24 hours, which means tomorrow will be at least OK. And a bad day riding is better than a good day sitting behind a desk wading through tech industry press releases.

Plus, one of the bedrooms in our condo has bunk beds! Who can have a bad time when bunk beds are involved? According to Karissa, this means we’re required to turn one of into a fort.